1 Then Moses and the Israelites sang praise to the Lord, and this was their song: A psalm for the Lord, so great he is and so glorious; horse and rider hurled into the sea! 2 Who but the Lord is my protector, the pride of my song; who but the Lord has brought me deliverance? Shall I not praise him, my own God; shall I not extol him, the God of my father before me? 3 The Lord, the warrior God, whose very name tells of omnipotence![1] 4 That power could hurl Pharao’s chariots, Pharao’s army, into the sea; drowned in the Red Sea, the flower of all his chivalry; 5 the depths closed over them, and they sank to the bottom like a stone. 6 How magnificent, Lord, is the strength of thy right hand; that right hand which has shattered the enemy! 7 Against such majesty rose they but to fall; the hot breath of thy anger burnt them up like stubble. 8 The waters were piled high through the blast of thy fury; the waves were still, at the sea’s heart the depths congealed.

9 After them, seize them! the enemy cried; there will be spoils for all, to our heart’s content; now to unsheathe my sword, and deal the fatal blow! 10 A breath from thee, and the sea closed over them; they sank in the raging waters like lead. 11 What power is there, Lord, that can match thee? Who, as thou art, is august in holiness, who so worthy of fear and of praise, who so wonderful in his doings? 12 Thou hadst but to stretch out thy hand, and the earth swallowed them up.

13 Thy mercy had delivered Israel; thy mercy should be their guide; thy strong arms should carry them to the holy place where thou dwellest. 14 The heathen raged in their hill-fastnesses;[2] anguish came upon Philistia’s citizens, 15 the chieftains of Edom were dismayed, the warriors of Moab overcome with fear; a numbness seized upon all that dwelt in Chanaan. 16 Terror and dread must needs fall upon them; still as a stone, under the threat of thy powerful arm, they must watch thy people go by, thy ransomed people, Lord, go by unharmed. 17 Entry thy people should have, and a home on the mountain thou claimest for thy own, the inviolable dwelling-place, Lord, thou hast made for thyself, the sanctuary thy own hands have fashioned![3] 18 The reign of the Lord will endure for ever and ever. 19 To horse! cried Pharao, and swept chariots and horsemen on into the sea; and the Lord brought the waters of the sea back over them, while the sons of Israel went through the midst of it dry-shod.[4]

20 Hereupon Mary the prophetess, Aaron’s sister,[5] went out with a tambour in her hand, and all the women-folk followed her, with tambour and with dances, 21 and took up from her the refrain, A psalm for the Lord, so great he is and so glorious; horse and rider hurled into the sea!

22 And now Moses led Israel away from the Red Sea, and they went out into the desert of Sur, where they found no water in three days’ marching over waste ground. 23 So they came to Mara, and even here they could not drink the water, so brackish it was to the taste; it was with good reason he called it Mara, for Mara means Bitterness. 24 Here the people were loud in their complaints against Moses; What shall we do for water? they said. 25 Whereupon he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord shewed him a tree whose wood turned the waters sweet when it was thrown into them. Here, too, he gave them laws and decrees to live by,[6] and issued this challenge to them: 26 If thou wilt listen to the voice of the Lord thy God, his will doing, his word obeying, and all he bids thee observe, observing faithfully, never shall they fall on thee, the many woes brought on Egypt; I am the Lord, and it is health I bring thee. 27 After this the Israelites came to Elim, where they found twelve springs of water and seventy palm-trees, and pitched their tents beside the water.

[1] ‘Whose very name tells of omnipotence’; in the Hebrew text, ‘his name is Yahweh’. This was the divine name communicated to Moses in Ex. 3.14; commonly in the Latin version this is translated ‘the Lord’, but here ‘the omnipotent’ as if to stress that it is a significant word, and not a mere title.

[2] The Hebrew text has, ‘The nations heard and were afraid’; the Latin version, ‘The nations went up and were angry’; it is not clear in what sense.

[3] Some of the verbs in this passage may refer either to the future or to the past and it has been suggested that it was added to the song at a later period, after the conquest of Chanaan. But it seems more natural to understand it as an anticipation, on the part of the Israelites, of an unlaborious victory over Chanaan, which was in fact denied them.

[4] Some regard this verse not as part of the song, but as an historical résumé leading up to verse 20. According to the Hebrew text, it was ‘the horses of Pharao’ that went into the sea; the Latin implies that Pharao himself went into the sea on horseback, but this is probably due to a textual error.

[5] And sister, also, of Moses, but the mention of the elder brother’s name is a genealogical formality, cf. Gen. 36.22.